


Suspension Cords

by Kaiosea



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: 3DMG, Developing Relationship, M/M, Non-ACWNR compliant, Pre-Canon, Sex, Sex Outdoors, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2016-12-26
Packaged: 2018-09-12 11:55:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9070558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaiosea/pseuds/Kaiosea
Summary: “Doesn’t it worry you, to sit that way?”Levi shrugged, a gesture that looked too casual on him. “I know I can catch myself if I fall.” “So could I,” Erwin said, not lying. “But I’d rather never be in a position where I could fall at all.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> Happy belated birthday, Levi, even though I started this in 2014 and never intended to finish this late. First Erwin/Levi. (And SNK is coming back?!?)
> 
> Thanks to ouroboros for looking this over!

Air ran up Erwin’s back, straps pulled at his thighs. Wind whistled painfully in his ear. The fight to stay in the air had long lost its novelty, and repetition caused pain to become familiar, if not comfortable. 

Heart beating fast, he was suspended above a neat formation of houses, brick soldiers standing at attention below. They’d asked the people of the town to remain inside for a few hours, so they could practice with the newly revised gear. So far it had all gone according to plan. 

Ahead was Levi, twisting above the rooftops, spinning out of a turn and into the next fake target. He was already a few paces ahead of where Erwin had projected him to be, the gap widening with every second. This didn’t surprise him, though he needed to start factoring that into his calculations: that Levi would undoubtedly surpass even the higher end of his projections, every time. _How will I account for that in planning? Truly, his strength is unparalleled, but it won’t do for him to lead maneuvers without a supporting army._ Not that Erwin even had an army yet, but the plans were coming along nicely, if bureaucratically. Which was to say, slowly. 

Erwin stopped at the peaked top of one roof and swallowed. The ground swam and lightness danced through his head as his skin baked in the heat. _Look down._

“Levi,” he called. “Pause.” 

Levi skidded to a stop at the edge of a rooftop and tensed like an arrow ready for the bow’s release. “What?”

“You’re too far ahead. Look behind you more often.” 

Levi clenched his jaw and his eyes darted sideways as if they’d like to roll for sarcastic effect. “Time for a tea party, huh,” passed from his lips. He pulled his wires back in, clipping them onto his belt, before Erwin could tell him not to relinquish fully yet. Levi hunkered down on the edge of the building, pulling in his ankles to sit cross-legged. 

Erwin wanted to scold him when he caught up, but the image Levi made was distracting him. Levi’s knees were hanging off the edge, which was funny, and Erwin had a nice view of his ass. 

“And what?” Levi said. “You coming?” He patted the spot next to him. These rooftop tiles were so small.

“I’m fine over here, thanks,” Erwin said from the center of the roof, far from the edge, continuing to catch his breath while he could. “Doesn’t it worry you, to sit that way?”

Levi shrugged, a gesture that looks to casual on him. “No. I know I can catch myself if I fall.” 

“So could I,” Erwin said, not lying. “But I’d rather never be in a position where I could fall at all.”

“Yeah. I know.” Levi tucked his feet under himself and jumped up, the muscles of his calves and thighs working magnificently. “Everyone else is coming. Catch up if you can.” 

Erwin blinked and Levi was already on the next roof, another blink and Levi had leapt again, and then Erwin’s body reacted and he snapped his grappling hooks out to the next target, following. 

 

*

 

“What I’m asking is, you think it would work to trip them? Like a big net,” Levi said. He’d asked Erwin for a meeting by candlelight, and Erwin’s curiosity had gotten the best of him. Levi had presented a rough diagram that Erwin suspected was drawn on a spare shirt, its seams torn. 

Erwin thought it stood no chance of working. “Perhaps.”

“Don’t humor me.”

“I was not.” 

“If you don’t take it seriously, I wanna know.”

“Why didn’t you bring it up with the strategists?”

“They don’t look me in the eye when they talk. Got no time for that bullshit.”

Erwin could believe that. Their strategists tended to be well-educated,well-off, and though they were trained as soldiers, they never saw combat. Erwin had already written it down as a problem on his list of renovations for the military system. 

He looked over Levi’s plans, wishing Levi had a wider boundary of acceptable personal space. Their bodies knocked into each other while they perused Levi’s chicken-scratch once more. 

Levi was wearing a pair of sleep shorts and a loose-fitting thin shirt, and Erwin’s eyes captured a bruise the size of his fist on the outside of his knee. 

Erwin was still in his military gear. He drew a curve, a poor attempt at a body in motion, and added the requisite angles into the diagram, imagining out Levi’s idea for a patient few minutes, explaining his thoughts. Levi stood stock-still, as uncomfortable in silence as in conversation. 

Finally, Erwin shook his head, coming to the logical conclusion. “Given our recent losses, I believe you are the only one who could execute this maneuver. It requires two people with your range in motion in the air, particularly the velocity of your spins.”

“So get another person.” Levi stared at Erwin’s additions with sharp eyes. Erwin knew Levi didn’t read well, but his eye for diagrams was not incompetent. 

Erwin cleared his throat. “In that case. If we have spare time after the next training maneuver, and if you’re willing, afterwards I’d like you to teach me how to spin,” he said. They had very little to lose. 

Levi tilted his head to meet his eyes, surprised. “Don’t know if I can do that.”

“I thought you could do anything.” Erwin said, and Levi knocked against his leg. Erwin leaned away deliberately. 

Levi stepped back. “Everything, but not anything, it seems.” 

“I’m going try it.”

Levi scoffed. “Just see if you can.’ 

 

*

 

“This isn’t working.” Erwin commented.

“Shut up. I don’t know how I do it,” Levi said, obviously frustrated. “I can’t explain it.”

Erwin watched him complete the maneuver ten more times before jotting down any more observations. The angle of Levi’s pelvis to the ground was ten degrees rotated further than how Erwin had been attempting the spin and subsequent strike. And being smaller, Levi needed less total force to propel himself upwards, wrenching out into a retreat. 

Erwin watched him closely. In the air, Levi was lithe and graceful, such a strong contrast to his usual demeanor. 

Having finished, Levi stood there like a potato and looked at Erwin, who motioned for him to go one more time. Levi completed it easily and returned back to Erwin’s side, hands on his hips. 

Erwin said, “Your spin was off the last time.”

“Felt the same to me,” Levi said grudgingly. 

“Tired?” Erwin asked. 

“I don’t get tired.”

“If you’re injured, or if your productivity changes, it is imperative that I know for—”

Levi interrupted. “I missed because you were staring at me.”

Erwin folded his arms, not understanding his meaning. “Will that be a problem in the future? I intend to keep staring. ”

Levi doesn’t break eye contact. “No. That’s none of your business. As long as I get your results, I don’t have to answer your questions.” 

“So I suppose I should try next,” Erwin said, after a pause. It wasn’t very far off the ground, and he could easily look down. 

A spare hour later, Levi was laughing. Erwin didn’t mind laughter when it was justified; he probably did look dumb, his huge body careening through the air unbalanced, weighing much more than Levi did. He hadn’t seen Levi laugh full-out before, and that was a pleasure. 

“It won’t work,” Levi said. “You’re too big.” His laughter trailed off at the end. 

The innuendo that flashed through Erwin’s mind was far too stupid to repeat out loud; he chided himself for even thinking it.

“Have you ever been told you couldn’t do something,” Erwin paused strategically, “Just because of your size?”

They’d spent a lot of time together recently. It seemed that when Erwin had no intention of angering Levi, he did so nonetheless; and on occasions when he deliberately tried to piss him off, Levi would simply snort.

As he did now. “The fuck do you think?” He was chiding Erwin for dangling too-obvious bait, rather than any real hurt pride or anger.

Erwin was always the type to run his words through his mind before he spoke, and with Levi he hesitated twice as long. “I think anyone who underestimated you would deserve what came to them.”

Levi scoffed. “You talk too fancy.”

“If any words are unfamiliar to you, I can explain them.”

That got a rise. “We have to go higher. Doing this near the ground is pointless. And not tomorrow. I have kitchen duty tomorrow, and I don’t want you pulling any strings to get me out. I don’t want special treatment here.”

“Of course. I live for your convenience.” That was veiled enough that Levi narrowed his eyes but couldn’t reply.

Levi stepped closer, almost pausing like he was waiting for something. Then he knocked against Erwin’s hip as he headed back for dinner on foot. 

 

*

 

Their next attempt took place in the trees. 

There was a possibility of Titans, but they only saw a sparse few for the first two hours. Levi swooped down to kill them efficiently. It was all going fine, ineffective but fine, until Levi took them higher. 

Maybe because his guards were down, Erwin followed. It was his duty to. Levi went higher and higher. Erwin landed on the highest branch of a giant, rickety tree. If he straightened, his head would be above the ceiling of leaves. But he stood crouched. 

The world spun around him in a nightmarish distortion. Tree bark scored red lines into his iron-gripped palms. He hadn’t moved an inch on the branch, and the noise of rustling leaves meant Levi was zipping ahead. 

Erwin’s face heated. He just had to move his arms. If he moved his fingers, his wrists and shoulders would follow. Even if he lost balance, he could shoot his gear into any of the myriad of trees surrounding him. So he needed to move his fingers. 

Suddenly Levi was there. Erwin was too aware he had not moved, his breath motionless inside his lungs. 

With a sparse furrow in his brow, Levi asked him what was wrong. Erwin answered quickly, so as not to worry him. But Levi repeated his question as if Erwin hadn’t said anything at all. So maybe he hadn’t, maybe he shouted the words in his mind but they hadn’t come out right. 

He shaped words, tried to move his mouth. “It’s merely vertigo.” He couldn’t hear himself but his vocal cords vibrated this time. 

Levi might have replied, but Erwin couldn’t hear him either. His ears roared with false wind and a disembodied voice. 

_“Look down.”_

It was what his father had told him as a child. Both of them standing at the edge of a cliff, Erwin had tottered inside shoes a size too big for him. Large for his age, he knew he’d have to grow into them. 

“I can’t,” Erwin said. 

“Look down. It is important.” 

The cliff hung over a ravine. A river rushed below, one of the few clean ones left. Erwin had heard that the shock of falling would kill you before the impact would. 

They traveled far out of town to do this regularly, and Erwin always went begrudgingly. But he didn’t want to fail his father anymore. 

“You will need this someday,” his father said, with the best intentions. 

Erwin gulped and kept his eyes open. 

“Look down. Down. Don’t look down. Look. Erwin, can you hear me? Don’t look down.” 

Erwin closed his eyes. 

When he opened them, he saw only Levi, whose brow was deeply furrowed, his eyes dark. 

“Are you okay?” Levi asked. 

“I am now,” Erwin said. He was shaky. He wished they had water. 

“You’re afraid of heights.” Levi’s voice was flat. 

Erwin only had to think once before he decided to bare himself. “Some weakness for a military leader. I’m sorry, Levi. I’ve tried but cannot seem to shake it. I face it every day and nothing changes.”

“What I know about weakness is,” Levi moistened his lips. “You either use it as bait or you gotta get around it.” 

Erwin waited, but nothing more was coming without his prompt. “What are you saying?” 

“I’m saying I never look down. I’m saying if you wanna sit on your horse when you can, if that’s what’s gonna help you give us instructions instead of getting fucking paralyzed—” Levi said this with no malice. “Then do that. You don’t have to look down all the time. It’s too shitting far.” 

Erwin nodded. His hands curled and uncurled at his sides, and he felt the wind again. “I think I understand. Shall we continue?” 

 

*

 

They finished the practice maneuver. It was a failure, through and through. No one could move like Levi. Erwin got close to the dexterity required, but was still years short of what came innate to Levi. They both knew it, so they didn’t discuss it. 

They sat on the same branch and ate the bland food they’d brought along. They were mid-high off the ground, so Erwin wasn’t looking down. He’d also found, through their experiments, that it helped to have Levi within his range of sight when they climbed the air. 

Levi stared at him; the gaze that had been directed to the stars found him with full fire. “You know there’s nothing better than a man who isn’t afraid to show he’s weak.”

Erwin goaded him half-heartedly, wondering from where the heat in his stare originated. “Easy to say that when you’re the strongest—”

Levi interrupted. Erwin was beginning to find it charming. “I wasn’t always. Whatever, I don’t care. My body,” Levi flexed his bicep. “All of it ends. I could just die now and it doesn’t matter how many big guys I can take in a fight.” 

“So what matters?” Erwin chewed the last of his bread and wiped crumbs off his hands. 

“What matters is getting free. This,” Levi said, gesturing to his grapple-hooks, his wires, his blades, the ropes over his body. “It’s the only thing. I jump. I go where I want with gas and gear and my hands and I go freaking high.” He shifted his glance to Erwin. “I know it’s fucking because of you. You gave me the cords, and it was as natural as, as when I hold my dick to piss. I just don’t want a limit on where I go.” 

_Equipment_ , Erwin thought, _that’s what I can give him. Why he’s here._

“I see things kids couldn’t dream of. I stand on the faces of monsters.”

Levi went into a controlled dive, drawing his blades as if to kill a Titan, mimicking the triumphant circular slash he was becoming known for. As soon as the downwards motion ended, he was up again, he glided and spun in a 360-degree motion until he perched on the highest branch. He had to crouch down, because if he stood, even at his small stature, his head would poke above the ceiling of leaves and glimpse the open sky.

Levi shouted, triumph etched into the strong set of his jaw. “I can fly higher than anyone.”

Erwin almost smiled. He called up, “Would you leave us if you could?” 

Levi didn’t answer. He returned to stand next to Erwin, landing with light footing. “There are other reasons to stay.” He tilted his head. “So are you gonna kiss me already?”

“Do you want me to?” Erwin countered, after a breathless beat. 

Levi stepped towards him, strangely light on the branch. “You were staring at me.”

Erwin’s heart beat in his throat. “Yes. I would like to kiss you.” 

“Ask me.”

“Levi,” Erwin said, but there was still a question forming in his mouth when Levi lunged forward and swallowed it down. 

Levi wasn’t good at kissing, his teeth hitting Erwin’s a few times before they stopped colliding. Erwin forgot about teeth after that, losing himself in the strange familiarity of kissing someone for the first time. A rhythm developed, with tongue and lips and his hand on Levi’s waist and Levi pressing hungrily into him, warmth above the wind. 

They broke away from each other. 

“We should keep moving,” Erwin said. 

Levi said, “I don’t agree.”

In the next moment Levi was kissing him again, and Erwin had to kiss back. He tried to hide his grimace when the tree trunk dug into his back, but Levi caught it. Levi reversed their positions, only to swear when the bark pressed against his back next. 

Levi wriggled out from his grasp. He was disrobing, delicately freeing the confines of his white shirt from underneath the straps, leaving the maneuver gear against his bare skin. Looping over his chest, the straps made him more vulnerable, more naked than the times Erwin had glanced at him in the showers. 

Levi spun the grappling hooks of his gear in his hands and wedged one deep within the center of the tree just beside them. He shot the other hook across a large open gap in the trees. It too lodged firmly into a sturdy tree. His body immediately flew into the air and stayed there, settled in suspension. Not touching the trees or the ground. On the middle of a tightrope of his own creation. 

Erwin didn’t know how he’d done it. There were wires running alongside Levi’s waist, keeping him floating. He'd tied the other ends to his hip gear, from the looks of it. 

He kept his eyes on Levi's face and raised his own hooks. Levi made his blood run hot with something that wasn’t, for once, anger. He made the right trajectory over and found himself, too, suspended on wires, clutching Levi as if he had any more stability than Erwin did. Perhaps they could pretend. 

Being weightless was a kind of freedom. It excited him almost as much as Levi's body, pressing against him hungrily. They lost their clothes quickly, tying them on the wires. Levi's skin was softer than expected.

Erwin produced a bottle. It was for their gear, but he knew it was safe for this too. 

“You really are always one step ahead, aren’t you,” Levi said, slicking his fingers with oil. He moved his hand as if to reach behind himself, but Erwin reached out, took a loose grasp on Levi’s wrist.

He gently directed Levi’s hand between his own thighs, and now, now Erwin was close enough to see Levi’s pupils dilated dark and oversized, to hear the quick unplanned breath he drew in when he realized what Erwin wanted, as the wet tips of his fingers found their way between Erwin’s cheeks.

“Yes, I am,” Erwin said calmly, and Levi shivered, fingers stuttering.

It wasn’t something he likes to do too often. Even when he touched himself, he’d come with fingers inside perhaps once every twenty times. He hadn’t planned to do this with Levi, but it felt right to do it this way. He was empty inside, and he wanted to feel Levi. 

Foreplay was a messy, funny experiment. The sky was getting darker, so it was relatively safe. Erwin couldn't imagine a safer place than by Levi's side, anyways. 

His legs draped around Levi's waist like a blanket and he sank down. He groaned. It had been a long time. Levi’s hands dug into his ass, and he picked up the pace when Erwin was barely ready. 

He liked that Levi wasn’t as large as some of his previous lovers. Erwin's unnecessary hands grabbing at nothing, as he bounced ardently in his lap. Airborne, weightless, tied. He liked that Levi could easily lift his entire weight in his arms. 

Levi suddenly shifted to hold the cords in his hands. With momentum he used the strength in his arms to haul himself forward, swinging a little like a pendulum. Erwin gasped when it shifted the angle of Levi’s cock inside him. 

The pendulum went both ways. Erwin could feel his thighs shaking with effort, the muscles clenching to 

“Don’t look down.”

Erwin wasn’t looking down, because he’d closed his eyes. Behind the darkness of his lids he could surrender to the feeling of being fucked, overwhelming and fast and full. 

“I'm close,” Levi said. He bit Erwin's shoulder. Erwin shuddered and clenched around him. The give and take between them was perfect. 

Erwin felt an extra warmth inside his ass, igniting his nerves. But more than that he appreciated Levi’s overblown reaction, how his head dropped forward and his hair fanned out over Erwin’s chest, but his hips kept snapping with the rhythm of a machine, fucking him. 

Erwin moved his hand on himself faster and angled his dick as much as he could as his orgasm overtook him, trying to avoid hitting Levi too much as he shot, his hand clenched tightly below the head. 

He took a drag of air, his brow drenched in sweat.

“I hope the squirrels like the taste of cum,” said Levi.

Erwin laughed. 

The cords held true even while Levi sagged backwards for a second, til they gathered their wits and slid to a larger tree to rest. The drop wasn’t too bad. 

Levi’s head lolled against Erwin’s chest, and his panting diminished to silent breaths. 

The clouds of foliage above them rustled and rained stray leaves.

 

*

 

The trip back was silent. At one point Levi paused, suspending himself in a spider’s web between two parallel trees, and he turned his head in obvious invitation. Erwin had caught up, and he paused himself along the same intersection, where they shared a brief open-mouthed kiss as air whipped past their feet. Arousal curled low in his stomach, but it wasn’t persistent, and it faded once they returned to headquarters.

“You made me tired today,” Levi said. 

Erwin turned. “Will your room and bed do? Or would you like mine?”

“Tomorrow,” Levi promised. “Or the next day. I like my bed, and you seem like a kicker.”

Yet Erwin was almost asleep when he felt the mattress acquiesce to another man’s presence. 

“And here I expected you to be wielding a knife.” Erwin raised his eyebrows, to tremendous effect.

“If you thought that, why didn’t you ready yourself when you heard me?” 

“I didn’t hear you.” 

“Really? I can hear you a mile away. Your footsteps are unique.”

“How?” Erwin was genuinely curious. He hoped his gait wasn’t too recognizable, since that would limit stealth.

Levi shrugged. “I’m getting in.”

“You have permission to kick me back.” 

Levi snorted. “You got it.” 

It was cold and Levi was clammy in his arms, and it was soon apparent that they both had trouble falling asleep at night. Erwin focused on synchronizing his breath with Levi’s while he ran through countless scouting formations in his mind.

Soon, he turned to think of his own greed. His ambition would take him far. His first thoughts upon meeting Levi had been how to harness that power to teach himself and others. But there was something about him that could not be passed on. 

He had wanted to possess that brilliance for himself, but found it was all he could do to observe and coach. And so he vowed to himself that if he was never going to spin, if he could never master the same genius and taste the wild air— 

Then he would add another worthy cause to his life’s devoted mission:

To free Levi from every earthly cage, bureaucratic bar, and material prison. To support every rough cord that performed its heavenly duty of suspension over his body. To keep him spinning as long as he lived. 

To watch him fly, no matter how high it took them.

**Author's Note:**

> [ All the way to the edge of this world.](http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2ggzh_all-the-way-to-the-edge-of-this-wor_music)  
>     
> *
> 
> Let me know what you think on your way out :)


End file.
